I want to argue. To throw something likeI’m fine, thanks, I’ve walked in on worse situationsat his head. But my fingers are starting to go numb in my gloves, and I’d quite like to keep all ten. My career kind of relies on them.
The sudden quiet is enormous. The fire cracks, the generator hums loudly, and, in the middle of it all, my pulse thunders.
Nate pushes his hood back, scattering droplets into the warm air. He looks at me like he’s not a hundred percent sure I’m real.
“I swear I’m not hallucinating you, right?” he says.
“Not unless I’m hallucinating you too,” I shoot back.
The words hang there, almost playful, absolutely not how I feel. Because under the shock, there’s a different burn.
A memory I’ve never fully shaken: opening a door at twenty, very mildly tipsy on cheap vodka and reckless possibility, expecting to find an empty guest room and finding him instead. Nate, sprawled on top of the covers, dead asleep. My friend Chelsea, curled into his side like she owned him.
The way my heart had dropped, hard and sudden.
The way I’d laughed it off later, made jokes about movie stars and messiness, while something in me quietly re-calibrated aroundyou’re not just my stepbrother, are you?
That was the night it hit me I liked him, a lot more than I should. And the night I decided showing it would be the stupidest fucking thing I could do.
Apparently my subconscious thought tonight was a great time to revisit that humiliation, upgraded in HD, with bonus fresh betrayal from Josh.
Outside, the storm howls against the cabin walls. Inside, everything narrows to the space between us, which is too small, too charged, smelling like woodsmoke and wet wool and annoying memories I didn’t consent to revisiting.
Of all the places in the world to run to, I had to pick the one already occupied by the first man I ever saw in someone else’s bed. My first taste of that particular kind of pain, hard on my latest taste of it.
And I am absolutely, definitely, not thrilled about it.
CHAPTER 3
Nate
I don’t know what cosmic clerical error landed Ally Montrose, the person I’ve been refusing to think about, in my snowed-in refuge. But the universe clearly has a sick sense of humor.
She stands dripping on the wooden floorboards like an avenging snow angel, cold, furious, and faintly vibrating. Her blonde hair is shorter than it was the last time I saw her, chin length and wavy and covered in snowflakes. My brain is doing that embarrassing restart loop where everything inside me goes blank except her name.
We have not been alone together in years.
And we definitely have not been alone together in a blizzard, in a cabin, in clothing I could wring out like dishrags.
And we absolutely, definitivelyshould notbe.
Ally shivers, hard enough to rattle. “Do you have any dry towels? Before I lose a toe?”
“Yes,” I say too quickly. “Yeah. Of course. Here.”
I gesture toward the hallway and lead her to the bathroom, forcing myself not to look at her more than necessary. Which is impossible, because every time I trynotto look, she makes a sound, like an annoyed huff or a panicked inhale, and my attention snaps right back like a masochistic rubber band.
“There should be a stack under the sink,” I say, backing away, keeping my eyes safely on the wall. “Take what you need.”
“Thanks.” Her voice is tight. Controlled. Wary. And, for some reason, not exactly thrilled to see me.
Which is fair. She was probably looking for the same alone time I wanted. Plus, one of the last times we were in the same house she found me passed out with her friend Chelsea sleeping next to me. I guess she drew the obvious conclusions, but nothing happened. Ally never knew that part, unless Chelsea told her, which I doubt; she was quite happy to let people think it did. The joys of being a Woodruff progeny.
And besides, I doubt Ally’d care one way or the other.
“Um,” she adds, “are you… staying in the cabin too?”
“Looks like it.” I try for casual. It comes out like gravel in a blender. “Fallon said it would be empty. Guess Mac told you the same thing.”
